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Sunday, May 8, 2011

Reactor #1 doors to be opened, workers will be allowed to re-enter as soon as approval from the NISA comes through

A fresh story from NHK reports that "radiation levels inside the building are now low enough for workers to enter".

Now i'm very curious and a bit suspicious. As seen in the previous post, all nuclear reactor hell seemed to be breaking loose overnight and into the early morning. Very opaque-appearing smoke and dust coming from multiple units were filling the video frame just hours ago. Are recently reported lower radiation readings within the reactor #1 building the result of this massive venting, or the product of Tepco's highly vaunted 8 duct filtration and isotope air removal system?

Seems to me that the latter would've needed more time to work before any appreciable results would show. From NHK:

Doors of No. 1 reactor building to open soon

Tokyo Electric Power Company is set to open the doors of the Number 1 reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. It says radiation levels inside the building are now low enough for workers to enter.

TEPCO says it will open the doors of the Number 1 reactor on Sunday if it can gain approval from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

On Thursday, the company activated a new air-filtering system in the Number 1 reactor building which was installed to decontaminate the facility.

It says data as of Saturday evening show the density of radioactive iodine and cesium are at a level that allows workers wearing full-face masks to enter.

The utility is now discussing the environmental impact with the nuclear safety agency, as traces of radioactive materials may leak out for about 8 hours.

TEPCO says a possible radiation leak would barely have an impact on the environment.

It says it hopes to open the doors as early as this afternoon after notifying the Fukushima prefectural government.

Workers are expected to enter the building and start to restore the No. 1 reactor's cooling function. The work includes recalibrating the water level gauge used for the containment vessel and examining pumps for the circulating cooling system.

Sunday, May 08, 2011 12:44 +0900 (JST)

No new readings within the reactor 1 building were provided in the article, but were between 8 to 100 milliSievert/hour on Thursday when they laid the ducts.